


The Man Who Lived Too Fast

by chaosmanor



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, implied sexual abuse of a seabird, implied superpowers, implied time manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock became better and better at being invisible and fast, until he could slide through time itself, unseen and impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Lived Too Fast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samvara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvara/gifts).



> Betaed by [samvara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvara/pseuds/samvara) and [maharetr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr).
> 
> Written for [samvara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvara/pseuds/samvara), who asked for the cormorant to be included.

When Sherlock was four years old, he ran away from home. A police officer found him at a train station, holding a marmalade sandwich and wearing a raincoat, even though it wasn't raining. 

The ride home in the police car was giddily exciting, even if the siren wasn't on. 

Sherlock's nanny, who he almost loved, was crying inconsolably in the front hall when the police officers handed him over to his family. Nanny's face was streaked and blotchy, the collar of her dress sodden with tears. Sherlock had not expected that.

"I don't know how he got past me," Nanny sobbed. "I don't know how he got past me."

A new nanny arrived the next day, one who didn't believe that children like Sherlock should have unlimited access to essential household supplies like matches and ink and paper and string and glue. And marmalade. 

Sherlock had miscalculated.

He made the new nanny cry so much she went away all by herself. He then decided the next replacement nanny was a good compromise who understood about string and glue and magnifying glasses, even if she was overly concerned about Sherlock and roofs and trees and cliffs. He made sure not to repeat the mistake that had cost him Nanny and her love.

Four year old Sherlock had learned that if he was going to run away from home, it was important to be very quick, not to hand himself over to the police at the train station, and to return before he could be missed.

* * *

At eleven years of age, Sherlock begged to be sent to boarding school.

He was going mad, surrounded by slow stupid adults, trapped in a house with a nanny and a governess. Mycroft, his shimmeringly distant big brother who came home from university occasionally, had told him stories about school, about lessons and laboratories and sporting fields. Boarding school was an escape to a place filled with people just like Sherlock.

At eleven years of age, newly incarcerated in boarding school and wearing a sharply pressed uniform that made him itch, Sherlock made the horrifying discovery that it wasn't only old people like nannies and police officers and dentists and parents who couldn't keep up with him. Other children, small boys who should have been just like him, were stupefyingly slow as well. 

Lesson after lesson, he listened to stupid, stupid boys failing to learn anything. In the promised laboratories all of the useful supplies were locked up, leaving Sherlock with the same pathetic resources as he'd had at home.

"I have work to do," he pleaded with the science master, a hunched old man with red-veined eyes. "I need sodium nitrate, potassium manganese and to use the fume hood, preferably without you watching."

"I don't think so," the master said. 

"You don't think!" Sherlock insisted. "No one does! That's the problem. I need to blow up a small thing, just a little bit, to see what happens."

The science master smiled at Sherlock with something like affection. 

"Alright. One small explosion which I'm going to supervise, and you're going to stop stealing reagents from my supply room."

Sherlock pointed at the blackboard covered in scribbled formulae and said, "Also, if you're worried about safety, you shouldn't do that."

"Do what?" the science master asked.

"Teach the sixth formers about butyric acid."

The science master said, "Oh?"

"Carboxyl groups," Sherlock said. "There's enough information on the blackboard to engineer at least two illegal substances, as well as make all of the butter in the school taste bad."

"Are you planning to do any of this?"

"Not today," Sherlock said.

"I don't eat butter," the science master said. 

"Allergic to dairy and shellfish," Sherlock said. "Only son has migrated to Canada and doesn't write often enough. Planning on retiring."

The science master stared at Sherlock. "Early retirement is looking more and more appealing."

"But not before I blow things up," Sherlock insisted.

 

Sherlock rang Mycroft at his digs in Oxford. 

"You lied," Sherlock said, before Mycroft could speak. "You are a liar."

"Well, yes," Mycroft said. "About what in particular?"

"School," Sherlock said. "Everyone is stupid. Cricket is, apparently, a non-contact sport. I'm only allowed to blow things up two afternoons a week. No one will give me a guide to conducting an autopsy, or let me store dead animals under my bed. Mummy won't listen, so you have to get me out of here."

"Have you read everything in the library yet?" Mycroft asked, and Sherlock made a scoffing noise into the phone and ducked the punch thrown at him by one of the third-formers.

"How is your Latin? Ancient Greek?" Mycroft asked.

"Dead languages," Sherlock said. "Dead and stupid."

"Learn them and I'll help you get out."

"Oh God," Sherlock said. "I might as well just bash my head in against this mouldy concrete wall then."

"Learn everything," Mycroft said. "Then call me again."

"Arse," Sherlock said, and hung up the phone. 

He was going to need more jars of marmalade if he was going to learn Latin and Ancient Greek before the weekend.

 

It took longer than a week, or a few weeks, long enough that Sherlock eventually became desensitized to the banal dullness of school. Later on, Sherlock would consider Mycroft's negotiations with grudging respect. The sustained focus of learning vocabulary lists and conjugating Latin verbs took Sherlock's attention off the drudgery enough for him to begin to settle in. Violin replaced Latin and Greek. Then the school realized that Things Were Better if Sherlock wasn't bored. Sherlock found himself taking extension courses in veterinary dissection, geology, and Sri Lankan theatrical performance traditions, along with every language the school could find teachers for.

 

Sherlock still slipped away from the school, past prefects, housemasters, gardeners, and Matron's pet terrier. He got better and better at being invisible and fast, until he could slide through time itself, unseen and impossible.

* * *

London in the daylight was dirty and congested, jangling against Sherlock's nerves. He hated the crowds pressing up against him, hated the grey skies, hated the noise and vibration of life.

After dark, late in the night, London was a different place, stripped of the worst of its flesh, a sprawling bare beautiful skeleton of a city. Sherlock would leave his flat then and run through the empty dark alleys, becoming one of the city's shadows.

The rooftops were open, empty rolling spaces above the reach of the streetlights. No one knew he passed above their homes. No one heard his footsteps. CCTVs didn't even register the flicker of him. He could run past late night drunks outside nightclubs, or dawdling dealers, or bored security guards, so fast that to him it seemed that they were all suspended in stasis, stuck forever.

He thought he was the only one, running through the darkness. 

He was running through the middle of the night traffic congestion around Cavendish Square, his coat flicking behind him as he ducked between cars and delivery trucks and skittered over the new road laid by the work crew. The evidence for his current case (a double murder using some very exciting South American plant alkaloids) was safe in his pockets, and he was looking forward to waking Lestrade up with the good news that the botanist did it.

Up ahead, someone else was running through the London night, as fast as Sherlock, as fast as thought.

Sherlock turned to run away from the only person ever who might be able to catch him, then the person lifted a hand holding an umbrella up in greeting and settled the other arm more securely around the bundle he was holding.

Mycroft.

Sherlock skittered to a halt in front of Mycroft, decelerating hard, time rippling around him in tiny compensatory waves.

"Mycroft," Sherlock said. 

Mycroft sighed.

The driver of the milk delivery van Sherlock had stopped beside shook his watch and frowned in confusion, then blinked at Sherlock.

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand at the driver.

The dark shape under Mycroft's arm uncoiled a sinuous neck and peered at Sherlock, then hissed fishily.

"You have a bird," Sherlock said. "Also, you are here."

"I told you I had a shag," Mycroft said. "At Christmas."

Sherlock thought about protesting at having been misled, then discarded the idea.

Mycroft smiled, his face softening in the headlights from the milk truck.

"I don't have the same obsession with flying through London in the dark as you, but sometimes it suits me to move around unseen as well." The cormorant made a birdy noise. "Our paths crossed. It would have been impolite not to greet you."

Sherlock frowned, grappling with the idea that he was not alone in the world, that someone else understood. He then discarded the issue as irrelevant, because that person was Mycroft. 

Mycroft, who could have said something, anything, at any point in the decades between Sherlock's first attempt at running away from home and that moment, and hadn't.

"Must be off," Sherlock said. "Got a murderer to catch!"

Sherlock bolted into the night, around the frozen cars and trucks and up on to the roof of the city, where a plane hung suspended partway through its descent into Heathrow.

* * *

Sherlock didn't slow down, not just because he knew Mycroft was fast as well.

He could think and work a thousand or ten thousand times faster than everyone else. He could be everywhere and see everything. People were still slow and stupid. Marmalade was still a necessity of life. 

Then John Watson, with his worn-down eyes, shuffled into Sherlock's life. Sherlock thought John was slow and stupid, like Mike, Molly, Lestrade, Donovan, and everyone else, for about twelve hours. 

The first morning John was in the Baker Street flat, Sherlock blew into the kitchen from the bathroom, forgetting someone else was there.

John was in normal time, somewhere between putting the kettle on and finding the tea bags. His dressing gown hung loose from his shoulders, lint was stuck in his stubble, and he smelled of sleep and clean sheets.

Sherlock, naked, wide awake and running at full speed, blasted past John and dropped bread in the toaster, then ran for his own bedroom. When he strolled back into the kitchen, wearing his bathrobe, half a minute later, John was staring in confusion at the toaster.

"Wha?" John said, and Sherlock patted him on the shoulder.

"Tea?" Sherlock asked. "Tea and toast?"

John looked suspiciously at Sherlock, but Sherlock ignored him and concentrated on putting the four different types of marmalade on the table, beside the pickled fingers and the butter.

 

The next day, Sherlock reorganized John's clothing in his drawers while John showered. Then, while John was brushing his teeth in normal time, Sherlock put everything back the way it had been.

 

A week later, after John had shot a killer for Sherlock, Sherlock decided to keep him. A crack shot with nerves of steel and an addiction to danger was an asset. Also, John was pleasing to have around. If Mycroft could have a cormorant, then Sherlock could have a John.

John cleared his throat and Sherlock lifted his bow and turned to look at John, who was standing in the middle of their living room.

No cane. Not favouring his leg. Tension around his mouth. Wearing his least-grubby sweater and jeans. Glasses had been cleaned recently.

"Is my playing a problem?" Sherlock asked.

"No, that was, um, nice," John said.

"That was Bach," Sherlock said. "Chaconne for Solo Violin. Nice isn't the right word."

"There's something I want to say," John said. 

Sherlock waited, bow held over violin strings, then said, "Oh, you want a conversation. Right."

He put his violin back in its case, along with the shoulder rest. The bow balanced across the open case, a promise to return, and Sherlock sat down in his armchair.

"Yes?"

John perched on the edge of the couch. 

"I've not been here long," John said.

"Six days, fourteen hours, seven minutes, and some seconds," Sherlock said. "A not insignificant amount of time."

John frowned at Sherlock and kept going. "Not been here long, but I've been a doctor in a combat zone. There are signs, common signs of a common problem, and I don't want to pry, but it would be negligent of me not to bring my concerns up."

"What?" Sherlock asked. "What in particular do you think is wrong with me?"

"Amphetamines," John said. "Probably. But cocaine is a contender. By the way, you were playing Bach's Chaconne in double time."

Sherlock lifted his hands and tested the muscle memory of the fingering and bowing of the Bach piece against his memory of hearing it performed, and shrugged. 

"Speed," Sherlock said. 

John nodded. "You have periods of intense agitation and irritability. You have a sleep disorder that even I, a former army doctor, am in awe of. You are aggressive and superior. Following your thoughts and speech is impossible."

"I will take every drug test there is," Sherlock said. "Including some of my own devising. All I'm actually addicted to right now is marmalade and chasing murderers. You are right. I have struggled with speed in the past, but in this moment, here in this flat, I have never felt less like speeding than I do now."

John looked flustered, and Sherlock wondered if his own physiological response to this was what the rest of the slow stupid world described as the urge to hug someone. Interesting.

"Okay," John said. "Thanks for your honesty. If you feel like you need to use speed again, please let me know. I'm a doctor. I can help."

 

When Sherlock came back from the rooftops and bones of London, first light staining the sky, he found John sitting in the living room in the shadows.

The door of the flat snicked closed loudly and Sherlock hung up his flying coat and shook the cold dew out of his hair.

"Why didn't you wake me?" John asked, standing up from the couch.

Sherlock paused, halfway between wanting a cup of tea and reassessing the forensic data in the case they'd just closed.

"It did not occur to me," Sherlock admitted. "Was I supposed to?"

John's hands were warm, one palm on Sherlock's cheek and the other circling fingers around Sherlock's wrist, feeling for a pulse. 

"Did you take anything?" John asked, and Sherlock wondered why mammals were called endothermic when they shed so much scorching heat to the environment. 

"The architectural blueprints to Scotland Yard," Sherlock said. "They weren't using them and I can improve the ventilation in Lestrade's office."

"Anything else?" John's fingertips had captured Sherlock's pulse and were holding it steady.

"Not this time," Sherlock said. "Is there something you would like me to steal for you?"

John sighed and let go of Sherlock's wrist.

The bed upstairs had creaked under the weight of John climbing into it before Sherlock had deconstructed the conversation and reassembled the components again.

 

Two nights later, Sherlock opened the door to John's room and found John sitting up in bed and reaching for the bedside light with the hand that wasn't pointing a gun at Sherlock.

"Sherlock?" John asked, lowering the gun.

"I approve," Sherlock said. "Don't shoot me, not unless you really have to."

John slid the pistol under his pillow and switched the light on, making Sherlock blink and turn his head.

"Would you rather the light was off?" John asked, clicking the switch again, and blessed darkness wrapped around Sherlock.

"Yes," Sherlock said. "You told me to wake you."

"I did," John agreed, and it took Sherlock a moment to realize the rustling sound was John pushing back his bedding and patting the bed for Sherlock to sit down. "Do you feel like you need to go out tonight?"

John's bed settled beneath Sherlock and Sherlock wrapped his arms around his knees, his night coat in folds around him.

"I want to tell you things."

"Sure," John said, the bed dipping as John lay back down. 

"I think my brother has an intimate relationship with a cormorant," Sherlock said, and John's choke of suppressed laughter was reassuring. "No, really. I thought he was dating a bird, but his bird is actually a bird."

"Oh, God," John said, his voice muffled, and Sherlock wondered if John was biting his own hand to suppress his laughter. 

"It's not funny. It's embarrassing. Then I realized that I never needed to worry about his disapproval ever again."

"That would be liberating," John said. "No need to worry about hiding the body parts when he visits."

"There is more."

John's silence was comforting, and Sherlock took a moment to think about what to say.

"When I was four years old, I ran away rather unsuccessfully. I have kept running, faster and faster, every day since. Sometimes I run so fast that time stops for everyone else, and they're frozen."

Something touched Sherlock's arm, where it was wound around his knees like a string around a tuning peg. John's hand.

"I did it to you," Sherlock said. "Froze you along with everyone else."

"The toast," John said. "Did you move my socks too?"

"Sorry," Sherlock said. "I don't want to do it anymore." He thought for a moment. "Unless I need to steal something," he added.

"Hey," John said, and Sherlock could hear the burden of a slow stupid war in his voice. "You don't need to, not even if there's something that needs stealing. No one needs to be frozen."

Sherlock let John's hand pull him down. He could feel John's pistol under the pillow and John didn't stop him from covering them both in the folds of his flying coat.

"Have you ever been to darkest Peru?" Sherlock asked. 

"No," John said, sounding half-asleep. "Is the marmalade good there?"

"Don't know," Sherlock said, closing his eyes. "We could find out."

END


End file.
